50th Anniversary

In keeping with the highly sought-after 50th Anniversary Print format, we proudly announce the first 50th Anniversary release in five years. Fox in Socks 50th is created in the same 55” x 26” print size as Ted’s Cat, The Grinch at Mt. Crumpit, King of the Pond, and Green Eggs and Ham, all of which are now sold out. Contact your art professional for details on this exclusive offering.

Dangerous!

For fifty years the flyleaf of Fox in Socks—Dr. Seuss’s 1965 charmer—has warned: “Take it slowly. This Book is Dangerous!” This wonderfully colorful Seussian tongue-twister was designed to help children get their mouths around language. That it certainly did!

From Random House’s “I Can Read It All By Myself Beginner Books Series,” Ted’s story features two main characters, an anthropomorphic “Fox” and “Knox,” who speak almost entirely in densely rhyming tongue-twisters. After introducing Fox and Knox, as well as props, box and socks, Dr. Seuss takes these four rhyming items through several permutations, adding more items as he goes along. This prompts Knox to complain every so often about the difficulty of the tongue-twisters.

First editions of Fox in Socks had this encouragement on the cover – “A Tongue Twister for Super Children.” Now the book’s cover has Dr. Seuss’s full directive, which was originally printed on the 1965 dustjacket’s inside panel – “This is a book you READ ALOUD to find out just how smart your tongue is. The first time you read it, don’t go fast! This fox is a tricky fox. He’ll try to get your tongue in trouble.”

Theodor Seuss Geisel in his story with storyboards for Fox in Socks behind him.

Here’s an excerpt for your consideration and enjoyment:

When tweetle beetles fight,it’s calleda tweetle beetle battle.

And when theybattle in a puddle,it’s a tweetlebeetle puddle battle.

AND when tweetle beetlesbattle with paddles in a puddle,they call it a tweetlebeetle puddle paddle battle.

AND...

When beetles battle beetlesin a puddle paddle battleand the beetle battle puddleis a puddle in a bottle...

...they call thisa tweetle beetlebottle puddlepaddle battle muddle

High Regard

1965 — Television host and Northwestern University professor, Bergen Evans, wrote this for the 1965 Fox in Socks dustjacket: “Not since the Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot to talk ere the tot could totter, has anyone thrown such a happy challenge to moppets as Dr. Seuss in this wonderful collection of tongue twisters. Peter Piper has picked his last peck of pickled peppers and Jane’s lame, tame crane is relegated to the roost.”

1992 — Ted’s biography, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, noted that: “Ted’s contributions to the language were cited in two reference books published in 1992: The Oxford Companion to the English Language uses fourteen lines from Fox in Socks when discussing “compounds in context”; the sixteenth edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, edited by Justin Kaplan, includes references from Horton Hatches the Egg and The Cat in the Hat.”

2000 — In 2000 Publisher’s Weekly created the definitive list of the “All-Time Bestselling Children’s Books.” Number 31 was Fox in Socks.